Your problem is that your UIImageViews are directly on the "full page" view.

transitionFromView removes the fromView from its superview and adds the toView on the superview with the given animation. Thus, it animates the superview.

You should include a UIView that servers as a container and have both imageViews as subviews. Add your tap gesture on the containerview. Also, you should not have weak references to the imageViews, since once you have done the animation once, your reference to the back imageView will be gone. It is probably better to add these in code rather than storyboard. No need to hide the imageViews.